


Right Under Their Noses

by CountDorku



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Disk Drunk | Infected Adora (She-Ra), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Hugs, Light Angst, Noodle Incidents, Oblivious Adora (She-Ra), One-Sided Attraction, One-Sided Catra/Scorpia (She-Ra), Princess Adora (She-Ra), Redemption, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) Season 3 Spoilers, This Isn't Even My Ship, Tonal Dissonance, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-20 17:11:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21285239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CountDorku/pseuds/CountDorku
Summary: What if, instead of Sea Hawk, it was Glimmer who ran into Scorpia during "White Out"? Who found common ground with her adversary in their shared romantic frustration?What if she then had an idea: if they could get their respective crushes to stop doing that thing they do, then maybe Adora and Catra would stop fixating on each other, open up, and finally see what's been right under their noses all along.But the heart is a funny thing, and you can't always predict what it will do...
Relationships: Glimmer/Scorpia (She-Ra)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 63





	Right Under Their Noses

“Hand her over,” said Glimmer, the lights around her hand flaring to life. She was not having a good day. The weather was cold and unpleasant, Bright Moon was a long way away, Adora was currently useless thanks to the First One virus again, her backup was occupied with Catra, she’d had to endure Sea Hawk singing, and she’d been forced to watch Adora and Catra being Like That once again, which felt an awful lot like being stabbed in the heart with a dining fork. All she needed now was to drop something heavy on one foot and she’d have the whole set.

“No,” said Scorpia. The fuzzy wraps impressively did nothing to make those claws look less powerful. “Catra entrusted me with watching her. I can’t let her down.”

“Catraaaa!” said Adora drunkenly. “She’s mean.”

Scorpia turned away and hunched over Adora, leaving Glimmer standing there with an almost comical expression of bewildered frustration on her face. “She’s misunderstood! You of all people should know that.” Scorpia’s expression fell. “I mean, you grew up together. I can’t compete with that. No matter what I do, I can’t seem to break down her walls. But you two…even when you’re trying to kill each other, you can tell there’s a real bond. I just wish she’d see me as worth her time too.”

Glimmer found her voice. “Wait, hang on,” she managed. “You’re here because you have a thing for Catra?”

“You wanna make something of it, princess?”

“Hold on.” Glimmer’s expression turned calculating. “I think we both want the same thing.” She smiled broadly. “I’m sure we can come to some arrangement…”

Scorpia’s brow furrowed, and she said, “We can? Because if we both want the same thing, that sounds like I have _more_ challenges in getting through to her.”

Glimmer’s smile became a couple of points more artificial. “I mean,” she said, her voice almost supernaturally calm and reasonable, “we both want Catra and Adora to stop doing…doing the thing they do. The fighting, the flirting, the sword-under-the-chin thing Catra was doing not twenty minutes ago-”

Scorpia flinched. “Okay, okay, you don’t have to rub it in. So what are you suggesting?”

“We split them up,” Glimmer said decisively. “No more fighting-as-flirting, no more endless pining, no more _heeey Adora_.”

Adora gasped, the sound echoing around the confines of the tiny room. “I’m Adora!”

Glimmer tossed a silver lune to Adora, who stared at it, almost hypnotised by the shiny coin. “Think about it. We get them apart, we get them to think about something else…and maybe they’ll notice what’s right under their noses and stop fixating on each other.”

Scorpia studied her for a very long time, and then nodded. “I’m in. Do we have a plan?”

“First, you’re going to have to give Adora back.” She closed her eyes as Scorpia blanched. “I know, you want to prove yourself to her, but look. You saw them earlier. You saw the sword-under-the-chin thing. Do you really think that keeping Adora in easy reach of her is going to work out in your favour? If Catra takes Adora back to the Fright Zone, you’ll get to spend an entire sea voyage watching her stand outside Adora’s cell, gloating.”

“This had better not be some kind of cunning Rebellion trick,” said Scorpia pugnaciously.

“The only way this will work is if it works on both of them,” said Glimmer, her tone resigned. “Otherwise, it’s going to be an endless escalation of this flirt-fighting, and Adora and Catra are going to keep this up forever.”

Scorpia’s free claw clenched. “…All right. Moons know how I’m going to cover for this, but you’re right. We need to keep them apart. Whatever the cost.”

“Yayyyy we’re all friends!” said Adora, and fell asleep.

“…I really, really hope she doesn’t remember any of this conversation,” admitted Glimmer.

***

Bow pinched the bridge of his nose. “So what you’re saying is that you made a pact with a Horde Force Captain, one of our sworn enemies, to emotionally manipulate your crushes into breaking ties in the hope that they would notice the feelings neither of you were actually able to just come out and say like reasonable adults.”

Glimmer fidgeted guiltily, and said, “I mean, obviously it’s going to sound bad if you say it like that.”

“You mean accurately?” said Bow drily.

“I prefer to think that I learned to better recognise our common humanity across the lines of the war, and we attempted to spare our nearest and dearest the emotional pain of whatever you want to call the thing they’d been doing since Thaymor.”

“Very poetic. And how did this plan go?”

Glimmer fidgeted again. “…Not great. We found this old building in the Whispering Woods that we started using as a war room…”

***

“So,” said Glimmer as decisively as she could manage, “we’ve learned that just keeping them at opposite ends of the battlefield doesn’t help.” She crossed out one of the entries on the slate.

“That’s on you,” said Scorpia defensively. “I nearly had Adora in a headlock, but she saw you going up against Catra through the fight and broke loose. I cracked a plate when I hit that tree, look.” She pointed to a piece of chitin that, to Glimmer’s untrained eye, looked exactly the same as its counterpart on the claw doing the pointing. 

“This could be harder than I thought,” admitted Glimmer.

“We get closer to finding the trick that works every time we try one that doesn’t, at least.”

“Thanks, Scorpia. That actually does help a little.”

***

“Well, we’re definitely not doing the fuel spill one again,” declared Scorpia. Her cheeks reddened. “I swear, I didn’t know how many of the fabrics in my bad-weather uniform dissolve in that stuff. That was embarrassing.”

“You think you have it tough?” said Glimmer as she marked off another entry; this brought the number of failures to seven. “Perfuma decided to tag along. I had to help clean up all that fuel afterwards. In hindsight, we should have saved that one for a fight in the Fright Zone itself; nobody would have noticed or cared about the pollution.”

“All right, that’s fair,” said Scorpia with a chuckle. “Would’ve left me a lot closer to my other uniforms too.”

“You want to bare your soul to her eventually, right?” Glimmer smirked wickedly. “Think of today as a practice run.”

This earned a laugh. “I did do plenty of running!”

***

“Just out of curiosity,” said Glimmer, drawing a line through the words ‘#11: Have Twinkles enlist the hedgehogs’, “why Catra, if that’s not too much to ask? She’s…”

“Mean?”

“That…wasn’t quite what I meant.” Glimmer pursed her lips, and continued, “But she is kind of mean, yeah. So why her? There wasn’t, I don’t know, a large bag of angry badgers you could have chased after instead?”

“Why, you-” Scorpia caught Glimmer’s expression and cut herself off with an involuntary laugh. “All right, that was kind of funny. But you don’t know Wildcat like I do. Yes, she’s…got her flaws. She’s moody, she’s volatile, she’s…yeah, all right, she can be pretty mean. But that’s not all there is to her. She’s got more drive than I’ve ever had. She’s really brave. And when Entrapta broke into Hordak’s lab, she went racing in to protect her; she can be a really good friend, when she’s not being everyone’s worst enemy.” Scorpia’s eyes fluttered closed. “I just want to help her let go. If she could stop dwelling on Adora, understand how much she has even without her…I really think she’d be able to find some kind of peace. Heal. You know?”

“And the bit where she’s really easy on the eyes doesn’t hurt,” said Glimmer, softening the barb with a smile.

“Be nice.” After a few moments, Scorpia asked, “Same question for you. What is it about Adora, specifically, that you find attractive? Her courage?”

“That doesn’t hurt, but no. It’s her kindness.” Glimmer took a moment to look for the right words. “Even when she didn’t know anything outside the barracks, she wanted to do the right thing. She wants to help everyone, all the time. She’s half convinced herself that if she doesn’t fix everything herself, she’s failed. And that’s a problem, because She-Ra isn’t a magical button that can do that. It’s just…her, but with an extra two feet of height. And I don’t think Catra is helping. Adora wants to fix everything…and Catra doesn’t want to be fixed, especially not by Adora. But because Catra is, uh, Catra, she’s gotta make it about hurting Adora, every time. And she knows exactly how to do that: by getting inside her head, telling her again and again that everything she does is Adora’s fault.” Glimmer’s voice cracked. “It’s eating her up inside, and I just…this is the only way I can think of to really get her to let go that isn’t going to get someone hurt or killed.”

“And the bit where she’s really easy on the eyes doesn’t hurt,” said Scorpia.

The tension diffused as Glimmer dissolved into helpless laughter.

***

“In my defence,” said Glimmer, pulling a chunk of ice from the bucket and wrapping it in cloth, “you didn’t mention that Catra was allergic to bees when we made the plan.” She handed it over to Scorpia. “Put that on the most painful sting.”

“I didn’t find out until yesterday!” Scorpia looked downcast and pressed the ice pack to her cheek. “I don’t know if this is working. She’s opening up, a little at a time…but I don’t know if I can get through to her. We’ve tried nineteen things to keep them from staring each other down like that and none of them have worked.”

“Then maybe the twentieth will,” said Glimmer, and patted Scorpia on the back – being careful to avoid any bee stings. “We get closer every time, right?”

Scorpia pulled away, and Glimmer grabbed for her arm. “Wait, Scorpia. I know it’s disheartening, doing so much for so little. I’ve had some rough days too. But you gotta persevere, right?” Scorpia looked doubtful, so Glimmer continued, “Remember what you said, back when we were getting started – when you were trying to build up your confidence to go out there and save the day?”

A soft smile played across Scorpia’s face. “I said I was brave, strong, loyal, and gave great hugs.”

“You should also have mentioned that you’re pretty, but all of those are still true.” Glimmer laid a gentle hand on Scorpia’s shoulder. “Point is, you’re a great catch. If Catra never sees that, _she’s_ the one who’s missing out.”

“Thanks, Glimmer. You’re a good friend, you know?” She looked at her other arm. “Can I have some more ice, please?”

Glimmer reached for the bucket. “I definitely owe Frosta a favour. Or six.”

***

“Those _were_ a weird few months.” Bow said, nodding. He paused. “I assume the one with Twinkles the hedgehog failed-”

“-because we couldn’t get Swift Wind to translate without tipping him off, yeah.” Glimmer shrugged. “It was a bad plan anyway. Most of them were, in retrospect.”

Bow’s eyes widened. “Wait. The bee thing was _months_ ago. What happened between then and now?”

“Well…”

***

Glimmer opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling, trying to make sense of the past few nights. She’d had the usual dream each time, the one she usually had when she was under stress, the one where Adora held and comforted her, but it had been…different, somehow. The strong arms holding her had felt strange, hard, like Adora was wearing reinforced gloves. The voice telling her it would all be okay was a little deeper, a little throatier than Adora’s.

After what felt like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, she realised that was because it hadn’t been Adora’s voice at all, at any point in the past several dreams.

It had been Scorpia’s.

Her little speech to Scorpia about _you should have mentioned that you’re pretty_ and _you’re a great catch_ echoed in her head, and she groaned. Great. Just great. She’d meant those words genuinely; Scorpia was indeed brave, strong, loyal, pretty and gave great hugs. She just hadn’t meant them like _that_.

Except, apparently, she had.

She groaned again, clawing herself upright. This whole thing was rough enough when her brain and heart were properly aligned. Having them decide to go off by themselves could ruin your whole day.

(On top of that, between Adora, Scorpia, and that brief, ill-advised crush on Catra, she was beginning to wonder what it said about her that her type appeared to be “current or former Horde force captain”.)

Okay. She could do this. She’d just wait for a reasonable time to bring up her feelings, and then bring up her feelings.

Yeah, that was absolutely self-delusion. If she was able to do that, she and Adora would probably be engaged by now and she’d never have even come up with this terrible plan or spent long enough with Scorpia working on it for this to happen.

Her breath hissed from between her teeth, and she began working to come to terms with spending a while helping Scorpia pull off the next few stunts. Knowing her luck, the next plan was going to be epically successful, and Scorpia and Catra would quit the Horde and raise seventeen kids. Ah, well. If that did happen, she’d be able to take solace in Scorpia getting her happy ending. And hey, if that did happen, then maybe without Scorpia, she’d focus back on Adora? She had absolutely no idea how this stuff worked.

***

Three increasingly silly crossed-out plans and at least eight similar dreams later, Glimmer and Scorpia had taken up a vantage point peeking over bushes in Plumeria. The latest plan, which involved quite a large bag of weasels, had been abandoned on the spot because reason had, for once, prevailed, and they’d realised, more or less simultaneously, that the plan was fundamentally unworkable on a very basic level. Also, the weasels were extremely uncooperative. No team spirit at all. Glimmer, her brain operating on pure panic, had proposed they study another interaction in more detail, in the hope that they would somehow, someday, come up with a plan that was not terrible.

Glimmer forced herself to watch Catra grabbing Adora’s collar. Her eyes, treacherous as they were, kept flicking over to Scorpia’s biceps.

There was a clunk and a sound of metal tearing to the left as Perfuma used her power on a small group of Horde robots-

“Get down!” Scorpia leaped forward, tackling Glimmer to the ground. The round shape of a damaged robot chassis spun overhead, sparking crazily as it missed the back of Scorpia’s head by inches. Glimmer found herself lying there, Scorpia’s weight pressing her into the ground, looking right into the taller woman’s concerned eyes.

The rational part of Glimmer’s brain began listing the reasons she shouldn’t try anything now. Scorpia still seemed pretty focused on Catra, for example. Also, they were on a battlefield. Someone could come to investigate that robot any moment now. Perfuma had probably seen movement over there, even if she hadn’t been able to make out any details.

As their lips met, Glimmer realised that the rational part of her brain didn’t seem to be hooked up to any of the other parts.

It was electric.

After a few moments, the rational part of her brain attempted to reconnect, which did nothing except set off all her panic reflexes at once. Purple light flared, and they found themselves on a hill, far enough from the engagement that they likely wouldn’t get caught. From this distance, the Horde robots exploding looked like very low fireworks.

They were also entangled in a bush, so the two pulled themselves free.

Glimmer stared at the ground with enough intensity that she half-expected the grass to scorch, and then, doing her best to maintain her cool, she began babbling incoherently.

“Scorpia, I, um, uh, er…” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I realise I’ve just made this really weird, and I…” Her voice trailed off as she realised she had nothing to follow that.

Scorpia, admittedly, didn’t seem to be processing it much better. “But I thought…you…Adora…”

Glimmer chuckled ruefully and said, “So did I, for most of the time we’ve been doing this. I kind of…realised a few weeks ago? But I think it was going before that.”

Scorpia’s eyes were beginning to brim with tears, and Glimmer gave a resigned sigh. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just dropped this on you without warning. I know you’re interested in Catra, and if you still want my help with that, it’s yours. I just…I don’t know. I’m so bad at this.”

“Thank you for telling me, at least,” said Scorpia softly, laying a gentle claw on Glimmer’s shoulder. “Guess it wasn’t just Adora and Catra who aren’t good at seeing what’s right under their noses. I wish I could tell you yes. But I don’t want to say no. And I know what it’s like, not having a firm answer.” She thought for a moment. “I’ll try and get through to Catra. Give it some time. But if I can’t…we’ll figure something out, okay? We’ll give it a try.”

“Thanks, Scorpia.” She looked at the exploding robots in the distance. “If you do get through to her, I hope we can at least stay friends?”

“That’s never going to change. I promise.”

***

Bow’s brow furrowed. “Wait, I remember that fight. That wasn’t too long before…”

“Before we met your dads, right. And then came Shadow Weaver…and from there the Crimson Wastes.”

There was a moment of silence as both of them mentally reviewed the weeks following that. They had not been good weeks. It was sort of an unofficial Bright Moon rule that people only brought those weeks up if it was really important.

“After the Crimson Wastes, I didn’t hear anything from Scorpia until now, I swear,” said Glimmer. “I left notes in the war room; I never found any responses. I don’t know why she’s here, I don’t know why she has a Horde robot that thinks it’s a dog, although I’d put money on Entrapta being involved, and I don’t know why she asked for Adora to be present.”

“Even so, you should explain this to Adora.” Bow’s face was stern. “She deserves to know.”

“…Yeah, I know.” Glimmer flushed. “Can you blame me for not being eager to have that conversation?”

“Glimmer. You are the Queen of Bright Moon. You can handle telling your friend that you screwed up.”

***

Adora had, in fact, been utterly confused by Glimmer’s admission. Why would she have thought Adora and Catra had anything going on before the portal? It was a big leap to make from all the touching, and the tone of Catra’s voice, and Adora always going easy on Catra and trying to reach out to her, and the always heading straight for each other in fights, and the sword-under-the-chin thing _okay fine _it wasn’t actually that big a leap after all.

Anyway, whatever that had been, it was over now, and so the Best Friends Squad gathered at the door to Scorpia’s guest room. (Glimmer had made sure that it actually _was_ a guest room – none of this ‘remove the pillows and call it a cell’ nonsense.)

The Queen took a deep breath and opened the door. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw Scorpia, sitting at the window, the rounded shape of her robotic friend sitting in the corner. A twisted knot of metal and broken glass sat on the table; it took Glimmer a moment to realise it was the remnants of a destroyed Force Captain badge. “Scorpia?”

Scorpia moved so quickly none of them had any time to react, lifting Glimmer from the ground before Adora could even raise her sword. For a second, the four of them stood there, a tableau of shock and astonishment. The robot twitched and spun, apparently just as confused.

After a moment, Glimmer realised that Scorpia hadn’t picked her up to use as a hostage. The white-haired woman was blubbering inelegantly and clinging to her like she was worried Glimmer was going to disappear, and Glimmer awkwardly reached out to hug her friend. “It’s okay, Scorpia. It’s okay. Calm down. We’ll put some tea on, and you can tell us all about it.”

***

Ten minutes later, Bow had brewed up a pot of tea thick enough to technically qualify as a form of marmalade, and the four of them took up positions around the table. They’d found a metal cup for Scorpia, clearly intended for soldiers on campaign; the beefy scorpioni woman held it with the caution of a museum curator transporting a fragile piece of pottery.

They sat in silence for a moment, and then Scorpia began to speak. She told them what Catra had done: her betrayal of Entrapta, who had been condemned to Beast Island, her attack on Hordak, her rise to power over the Horde.

“I couldn’t stay,” Scorpia finished. “I’m not proud of everything I’ve done for the Horde – or for just Catra, but that…I tried to pretend everything was all right, that it would all go back to normal, but it wouldn’t. How could it? So I’ve left the Horde; there’s nothing for me in the Fright Zone.” She rocked back slightly, as if she’d just realised the gravity of the step she was taking. “I’m here to join the Rebellion.”

There was a pause, and then Adora reached over and gently patted Scorpia on the shoulder. “From one ex-Force Captain to another…welcome aboard.”

“Thanks. I’m sorry about…well, everything.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Adora. “We are going to need to ask you some things, though.”

“Anything. All the intel I have is yours.”

“Well, right now we only need to know one thing.” Adora smiled grimly. “Where’s Beast Island?”

***

“Hey.”

Scorpia looked up from the water to see Adora bearing down on her, smiling gently. “It’s okay, I just want to talk.” The blonde woman sat down at the railing, next to Scorpia. “If this is hating me the normal amount, I can’t wait to see what being your friend is like.”

“Hating-” The penny dropped. “Heh. Yeah. I suppose I did promise that, didn’t I? And we worked together pretty well then, as I recall.”

Adora’s sunny countenance clouded for a few seconds as she recalled the existential nightmare of the portal-verse…particularly Catra, her descent into darkness no longer a metaphor but clearly visible on her face. “Pretty well, yeah.” She paused for a moment. “How are you adjusting – to Bright Moon, I mean?”

“Pretty well, actually. I spent a lot of time out on missions, so Bright Moon is just…a nicer place to stay than usual.”

“Lucky you. It took me ages to figure things out. I still miss some things about the Fright Zone – the machinery sound in the background, the people all around in the dorms.” She paused. “Not the smell, though.”

“I don’t think anyone could miss the smell.” Scorpia tapped her claw against the railing absently. “I wonder what that area was called before it was the Fright Zone. I mean, I’m technically its princess…”

Adora gestured to Bow, who was helping Glimmer do something nautical with the sail, and said, “Bow’s dads are historians. I’m sure they can do some digging for you.”

“I’d like that.” There was another pause, and then Scorpia asked, “So, what’s with Glimmer’s new look? I mean…it _works_ for her…”

It took Adora a few moments to notice the rosy blush developing on Scorpia’s cheeks. “Her mom…didn’t make it out of the portal. Angella gave her life to save us…which means Glimmer is the queen now, and she has to dress like it.”

“Oh.” Scorpia’s voice was hollow. “That must’ve been…really hard on her.”

“It was, yeah. She’s doing all right now, but it’s going to be a while before she’s really dealt with it.”

***

As the anchor dropped, and the _Dragon’s Daughter VII_ came to a rest for the night in a secluded cove, the tapping of knuckles echoed off Scorpia’s cabin door. It drifted open with a creak, and Scorpia’s eye peeked through the gap. “Glimmer?”

“Can I come in? Sorry, I just…” Glimmer took a deep breath and got her thoughts in order. “We haven’t really had a chance to just…talk, have we? You got to Bright Moon, I had to get Bow and Adora up to speed, then we had to put this mission together…”

The door creaked again as Scorpia opened it wider, and Glimmer slipped through. “Thanks. Crazy couple of months, huh?”

“Yeah, it’s…it’s been rough. What Catra did, having to hold things together afterwards…Not being able to get out and see you.”

“Yeah.” Glimmer’s voice was soft, and her eyes were directed at the floor. “Losing my mom…losing contact with you…it wasn’t easy. It’s…it’s really good to see you, and I’m happy that you’re here to stay.”

Glimmer concentrated for a moment, and the energies of the Moonstone began to lift her off the ground, raising her face up to level Scorpia’s. She leaned in, and their lips met, again.

After a moment, Scorpia pulled back. “I don’t think we should.”

“Scorpia-”

“I’m sorry.” She bowed her head. “I want to make something of this, but…I don’t think it’s the right time for either of us. I’m pretty sure we’re both still hurting from the portal, and…I don’t want that to be the tone, you know? I want us both to be happy…not just less sad, and that’s going to take some time. We should wait. Make sure that we can do it right. You know?”

Glimmer’s heart trembled, but she knew Scorpia had a point. “You’re right. We shouldn’t rush things.” She smiled weakly. “Can I at least get a hug, though?”

“Of course!”

Glimmer was sure she felt a rib give way and didn’t care.

Tomorrow, Beast Island. Hopefully, saving Entrapta. And after that, new challenges, day after day of them.

But right now, strong arms were holding her, and a voice – one inside her, but still – was telling her it would all be okay. And she could live with that.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> This isn't even my ship - I'm usually Glimmadora trash - but I thought it'd be funny, so I did it.
> 
> and then i had to go and ruin it by getting all sincere and angsty and I'm sorry for whatever the whiplash did to your necks, for what it's worth I wrote bits of a bunch of other possible endings and most of those were even angstier


End file.
